Sweat

This post is about Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat”. From what I gathered, this story seems to rely heavily on karma, a philosophical / Buddhist concept to which I’m not so sure I subscribe. Our protagonist, Delia, is a black woman who lives and works in Florida. She lives with her husband, Sykes, and she works for white people, as she washes their clothes. Her husband, Sykes, is an abusive husband. This fact is introduced in the beginning when he scares her with the whip, followed by the continuous references to her beatings. The quote I am choosing to analyze, or rather, a quote that stuck out to me was from the second page, when some of the other characters are talking about Delia and how terrible Sykes is. Before they agree that they would all like to kill Sykes, Clarke states “Taint no law on earth dat kin make a man be decent if it aint in 'im”. I found this quote rather interesting, not because of the philosophical debate it might inspire about the nature of people, but because of the foreshadowing it posed and the way it was conducive to the karmic element of the story. The statement implies (as does the rest of that conversation) that because a man like Sykes could never change, something needed to be done about him. Whether it was a punishment issued by the characters who wished him harm or not, this quote implied (to me) that Sykes would get what was coming to him, which he did. The snake was also a major component of the story for me. Throughout the story, Delia expressed her fear of snakes, a phobia on which Sykes capitalized by procuring a rattlesnake. Snakes, from a more metaphysical outlook, symbolize eternity, evident by the symbol of a snake curled into a circle eating its own tail. One could interpret this many ways. In the context of this story, I would say it’s not too far of a stretch to suggest that the snake implies that things have come full circle. When Sykes returns to the house towards the end of the story, he is bitten by the snake that he put in the house to torment Delia. From a philosophical perspective, it is interesting that the thing Delia feared so much ended up freeing her. In that sense, the story has come full circle. To that end, Sykes also received what was due to him. Delia let him die as she waited under the chinaberry tree, which may have symbolized the peace she felt accompanying Sykes’ death, another implication that the story has come full circle.